‘Okay, folks, let’s get to it. Stace, what do we know about the team at Westerley?’ Kim asked, eager to get moving on the first full day of investigation.
‘Professor Christopher Wright was born in 1959. His father died when he was two years old and his mother never remarried. He’s a confirmed bachelor and has worked in various medical fields before settling on human biology. He has written countless papers and is listed as a consultant to seven universities that I’ve found so far.’
‘Clever chappie,’ Bryant observed.
‘Oh, there’s more,’ Stacey said, continuing. ‘He is a qualified expert and has testified in at least three murder investigations and two appeals. He’s got a reputation for remaining calm even under robust cross-examination. Also, in addition to his full-time job at Westerley he’s still pretty active on the lecturing circuit.
‘There was a complaint lodged against him in his early teaching days by one of his students, but it was unfounded and later retracted. Oh, and he has a cat named Brian.’
‘Bloody hell, Stace,’ Kev said snidely. ‘What did you do, take him out?’
‘To be honest he’s plastered all over the internet. He wasn’t hard to find,’ Stacey admitted.
Kim opened her mouth to ask a question, but the detective constable beat her to it with the answer.
‘No criminal record, boss. Three parking tickets all paid on time.’
‘Bit of an open book,’ Bryant said. There was nothing there that warranted any kind of note-taking.
‘Catherine Evans, on the other hand, is a completely different story,’ Stacey said, raising her eyebrows. ‘No articles and no published papers. Found her on LinkedIn but no Facebook or Twitter. Really weird.’
Not that strange, Kim thought. LinkedIn, she knew, was a type of Facebook for professionals. She wasn’t on it. Neither was she on Facebook or Twitter. Some people just chose to live their lives away from social media.
‘Next.’
‘Jameel Mohammed is twenty-two, was top of his class for statistical analysis at Loughborough University. You can find him on Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and Pinterest. There are six video clips of him on YouTube, playing the guitar… badly. Lives at home in Netherton with his mum and dad and two older sisters.’
Okay, Kim mused. Nothing there was screaming ‘I’m a murderer’.
‘Keep digging on Catherine and I think we need to cast the net a bit wider. Get on to Professor Wright and get a list of people involved with setting up Westerley.’
‘Will do, boss.’
Kim rubbed at her chin. ‘Stace, before you start that, can you get me the aerial view of the site?’
Stacey tapped a few keys and Kim moved to stand behind her.
As the camera zoomed in Kim waited until she could make out the whole area. ‘I want a better idea of how he got her in there.’
Google continued to rotate the world before her eyes.
‘Stop. There’s the stream running through which marks the boundary of Westerley land so we know that Jemima wasn’t actually dumped on their property.’
Kim couldn’t help wondering if that was significant.
‘Zoom back out… slowly. Is there anything else in the area?’
Both she and Stacey stared as the camera view backed up.
‘Is that a road, Stace?’
Stacey zoomed back in. ‘Kind of.’
It was barely a single-track carriageway that on closer inspection was a dirt track. It was little more than a few tyre tracks driven into the grass.
‘You really think one man carried her up that grass bank alone, guv?’
‘She was delivered somehow, Bryant, and it wasn’t by Royal Mail.’ She turned back to Stacey. ‘Zoom back out. Jesus, there’s nothing around there.’
The choice of the location was becoming a real source of intrigue for her. There had to be a significance, and she wanted to know what it was.
‘Okay, Stace, you know what you’re doing. Kev, I want you focussing on access and CCTV. How the hell did he get her up there?’
Already something here was not making sense.
Thirteen
‘Guv, can you remind me what I did to deserve the pleasure of coming back here with you?’
‘You’re just lucky, I suppose,’ Kim said as they waited for the gate to open.
‘Oh yeah.’
‘Bryant, you know I have a very fair way of choosing who gets the shit jobs. Whoever pisses me off the most. Simple.’
‘Ah, that explains why it’s always me.’
Kim opened her mouth to argue but no, he was right.
And still the gate hadn’t opened.
‘It wasn’t this hard for our bloody murderer to get in,’ Kim moaned, giving the button another press.
The gate began to move.
Kim drove through and across the gravel.
She glanced to the line of cars and groaned inwardly when she saw the red pickup truck of Daniel Bate.
‘Not one word,’ she growled at Bryant.
‘Yeah, I appear to be in enough trouble as it is.’
She parked up at the end of the row beside a silver Aston Martin. It was a car she hadn’t seen parked there the previous day.
‘Okay, I’m gonna get Catherine to take me on a bit of a tour and I want you to chat to the others.’
She got out of the car and turned to lock the door.
‘Ah, Kim. I hoped you’d be back,’ Daniel Bate said, approaching his vehicle.
‘Why are you still here?’ she asked.
‘Nothing too urgent back in Dundee so I thought I’d hang around. Annoy people for a while.’
‘Must be nice to have that level of flexibility,’ she observed.
‘I’ve earned it,’ he stated simply.
Annoyingly, she knew it to be true. Their time spent on the Crestwood case had shown her Daniel was not afraid of hard work.
‘Well, just don’t annoy me,’ she said to his back.
‘Believe it or not, I’m not even trying. Yet.’
He swung open the passenger door. Lola, his one-eyed dog, jumped down to the ground, shook her body then wagged her tail. The dog turned, stared for a second and then bounded towards her at the end of the pickup truck. Kim wasn’t sure how the dog’s vision was affected but it didn’t seem to bother her one bit.
Kim instantly held out her hand for the dog to sniff.
‘Pretty pointless doing that,’ Daniel said, walking towards her. A lead dangled from his hand. ‘Dogs’ noses are so powerful she could smell you before you came through the gate.’
Yeah, Kim knew that, but it was still her natural reaction to show the dog she was no threat.
The dog started sniffing madly at her boots and offered a couple of playful barks.
Daniel shook his head, bemused. ‘She likes you. God only knows why.’
Bryant chuckled, knowingly. ‘She can smell Barney.’
Kim threw him a murderous look.
‘Who’s Barney?’ Daniel asked, looking from her to Bryant.
‘My goldfish,’ she answered.
Daniel looked down to where Lola’s attention was still fixed on her boot.
He raised an eyebrow. ‘What did you do, stamp on him?’
‘Yeah, because he pissed me off,’ she said, walking away.
She heard Daniel laugh somewhere behind her.
She opened the Portakabin door and walked into the chest of a navy blue thick-knit jumper. She looked up but then levelled her gaze as the man stepped down onto the dirt patch.
The first thing she noticed was that the sun had disappeared behind either his wrestler’s body or his shaved head.
‘And you are?’ she asked.
‘Darren James, security and going home.’
He plucked at a lanyard around his neck and produced a security licence.
He’d obviously spent the night at the facility guarding the bodies and was under the illusion he could simply finish his shift and leave.
‘Well, you got the first two right but not the third,’ Kim advised. ‘You won’t be going anywhere until Bryant here has had a word with you.’
‘No way, love. Me bed’s calling after a thirteen-hour shift.’ He nodded towards the open door. ‘Me boss is in there, and you can take it up with him.’
She peered at his badge. ‘Instead of “love” try “Detective Inspector” and don’t make me cuff you to the door.’
He looked to Bryant.
She rolled her eyes. ‘I can’t actually do that, Darren, but we do need you to stay.’
He was still looking at her doubtfully. Honestly, could no one take a joke any more?